


Fighting Boredom

by CelesteFitzgerald



Category: PRISTIN (Band), SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Spooky, Thriller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-28 20:26:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21142694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelesteFitzgerald/pseuds/CelesteFitzgerald
Summary: It's Halloween season, and Jieqiong is bored. She wants an adventure to get her in the Halloween spirit, but the average haunted house won't do—she wants to bereallyscared. Luckily for her, her best friend Minghao finds the perfect scary attraction...





	Fighting Boredom

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SevenCandlesticks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SevenCandlesticks/gifts).

“I’m bored,” Jieqiong whined.

“Wow, _really_? I had _no_ idea,” Minghao said, rolling his eyes.

“…Did I already say that tonight?”

“Seven times.”

Jieqiong groaned and rolled off the couch onto the floor, next to where Minghao was sitting. “Fix it.”

“It’s not my job to entertain you.”

“That’s _exactly_ the job of a best friend,” she said, poking his cheek.

Minghao wished he could disagree with Jieqiong, but she _did_ always do everything she could to help him fight _his_ boredom. “Fine,” he said, shutting off the TV. “What do you wanna do? It’s October now, we could carve jack-o’-lanterns or something?”

“Ugh, no,” Jieqiong said. “If we’re gonna do something Halloween-y, it’s gotta be scary.”

“A haunted house?”

“Nah. Those are too obviously fake. I wanna be _really_ scared.”

Minghao sighed. “I’m not sure how we’d ever find something scarier than that….” He trailed off when he saw Jieqiong pouting. “…I’ll do some research and find something.”

Jieqiong’s mouth slowly spread into a smile, and in a rare moment of affection, she sat up and gave him a brief hug. “You’re the best.”

* * *

“Seriously, where are we going?” Jieqiong asked once she had been in Minghao’s car for a solid twenty minutes.

“Seriously, _stop asking_. I’m not gonna spoil the surprise,” Minghao said as he made a left turn, taking them even farther into the middle of nowhere.

Jieqiong hoped that wherever they were going wasn’t too much farther—the sun was starting to set, and she needed to wake up early the next morning. But Minghao had insisted that their mystery adventure take place tonight, so she decided to trust him…which may have been a bad call.

She kept staring out the window, trying to find some indication of where they were heading, but all she could see was an endless expense of agricultural fields. Nothing about this looked like something either of them would enjoy—

_Wait_. Coming up on the right side of the road was a small sign sticking out of the ground. Jieqiong squinted at it, trying to read the weathered words. “Corn maze, next left?”

“Surprise!” Minghao said with a huge smile. “Last night, when you said you wanted to do something really scary, I went online and read about this haunted corn maze. You’re gonna love it!”

“A haunted corn maze? Are you sure that’s a real thing?”

“Mmhm. I know what I’m doing.”

“Well,” Jieqiong sighed, “I wasn’t starting to think you were planning on kicking me out of the car and stranding me in some random field, so I guess I’m glad that there’s an actual destination point.”

Minghao laughed. “To be fair, abandoning you in the middle of nowhere would have also been scarier than any haunted house. Maybe we should do that next time.”

“How about _no_?”

After a few more minutes, they pulled into an almost empty parking lot. Jieqiong looked around at the signs, and she soon had several questions for Minghao. For one, _nothing_ said anything about the maze being haunted, or even remotely Halloween-themed. Even worse, the maze was supposedly going to be closing in thirty minutes. Still, Minghao assured her that everything was fine, so they went to the booth and paid the admission cost.

As the sun sank lower and lower, they finally entered the maze. Minghao paused at the first fork to ask Jieqiong which path to take, and she pointed to the left without even slowing her pace. Eventually, Minghao just stopped asking—Jieqiong just picked a path, and he followed.

Jieqiong had actually been enjoying herself until she realized that they had been in there for five whole minutes already without seeing anything spooky. “Are you sure this is the right place?” she asked. “There’s nothing scary here.”

For the first time all day, Minghao started to look nervous. “I thought I was sure…maybe I typed in the wrong address.” He pulled out his phone and—“Hold up.”

Jieqiong stopped walking and turned around to see Minghao staring wide-eyed at his phone. “What’s wrong?”

“My phone isn’t turning on.”

“Ugh, you’re always letting your battery die, that’s normal—”

“No, not today,” he whispered, his voice starting to shake. “I had it plugged in during the drive over, remember?”

Come to think of it, he was right. “Then it _has_ to turn on,” Jieqiong said, yanking his phone from his hands. But she had no luck either. “Let me check mine,” she said, reaching into her pocket.

She pulled out her phone—which, luckily, _was_ turned on—and tried to look up the place they were at. “Dang it, it says I have no service. Oh well, let’s just keep going now.”

But Minghao still looked freaked out.

“Okay, okay, just relax, dork,” Jieqiong said as she held her phone up and started pacing. “Maybe I can get service. She turned away from Minghao to try it from a few meters away, but she froze when she heard a scream.

She whirled around to rush back to Minghao—but he was nowhere in sight. The scream grew quieter, and she heard the rustling of corn stalks. “Minghao! Minghao, where are you?” she shrieked, needing her friend now more than ever.

Very faintly, she could hear him calling back. “Jieqiong! Help me, Jie—_mmph._”

Jieqiong’s fingers tightened around her phone as she tried to stay calm. He would be fine, right? He had to be fine. She would make sure he was fine. Somehow…how?

After taking several deep breaths, Jieqiong did the only thing she could think of: she barreled straight into the wall of corn that Minghao had disappeared into and tried to find him. She didn’t know what would happen if she…no, _when_ she found him, but she knew that she had to.

The rows of corn were thick, but in her rush of adrenaline, she shoved them out of the way, leaving behind a trail of snapped stalks. She could barely tell where she was going, but she kept moving and listening for the sound of movement in front of her—she was getting closer.

Her arms and legs were covered in scratches and she was out of breath, but she couldn’t stop now, not when she could see the faint hint of something up ahead. Letting out a groan, she shoved a few more stalks out of the way to find—

…Another damn part of the maze. No Minghao. No _anything_.

Jieqiong collapsed onto the ground, frantically looking around to make sure there was nothing sneaking up behind her. This was…no…this couldn’t be happening, it couldn’t it couldn’t _it couldn’t_.

_Crunch_.

Jieqiong froze. Something was coming toward her.

_Crunch_.

The footsteps got faster.

_Crunch_.

She could make out the shape of a shadow between the stalks.

_Crunch, crunch, crunch_.

She tried to stand up and run, but her legs weren’t working. She couldn’t move, she was trapped—

A huge, shadowy figure crashed through the boundary.

She couldn’t breathe.

It came toward her. It snarled, baring its teeth as its claws encroached on her.

She shrieked.

And it…laughed?

Jieqiong quieted down and listened as the monster continued to laugh. It didn’t sound like a maniacal laugh, it sounded like…

“_Minghao?_”

Still laughing, Minghao removed his mask. “Oh my gosh, you should have seen the look on your face!”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Jieqiong screamed, swatting the stupid mask from his stupid hands. “I thought you were in serious danger.”

“Not like that ‘fake danger’ at all those haunted houses you hate, right?” Minghao asked, smirking.

“…What?”

“Hey, _you’re_ the one who said you wanted to be _really_ scared. I’ve gotta say, I think I did my job. I just wish I had been able to take a picture of it,” Minghao said as he reached into his pockets and grabbed his phone…then opened the back to snap the battery back into place.

Jieqiong stared at him, her hands shaking. “Did you…did you honestly think that _this_ was a good idea?”

Minghao’s smile faltered.

“If you really thought I’d enjoy this, then you…you….”

He took a step back.

“…you were absolutely right! I’ve never been so terrified in my life, that was incredible!”

“…It was?”

“Yes!” Jieqiong said. “That was exactly what I was looking for! Oh my gosh, I think that scared me enough for a lifetime.”

Minghao sighed in relief. “Good, because I’m never doing this again. Also, I’m pretty sure they won’t allow us back in this maze, anyway.”

Jieqiong turned around to look at the trail of destruction she had left behind her. “Yeah…we should hurry up and get out of here before they catch us.”

“Good plan,” Minghao said as they took off running down the path.

Even though her muscles ached and her throat was parched, Jieqiong couldn’t stop smiling. Minghao always knew how to ruin her life in the best possible way.

**Author's Note:**

> A gift for a friend!!


End file.
